Matt Cooper: Add somecreative ideas to the debate

Politicians agree on things more often than they would like to admit, but to ensure a healthy democracy they should clash with gusto on the coming cuts

The idea that opposition parties should endorse the government’s forthcoming
hairshirt budget, as proposed by John Gormley and Eamon Ryan, the two Green
ministers at cabinet, reeks of political naivety. Why would Fine Gael and
Labour want to fashion a straitjacket that they would have to wear if they
find themselves in power? Why would Fine Gael and Labour choose to fight a
general election with the handicap of having endorsed whatever it is that
Fianna Fail and the Greens are planning for December?

Objections to a budgetary consensus, of course, are based almost exclusively
on how such a decision will affect a party in terms of political advantage.
Economic and ideological differences play second fiddle to those concerns.
Since we have heard little from Labour or Fine Gael to suggest any great
divergence from the macro-economic approach being taken by the current
administration, why would supporting the coalition’s budgetary